


Leonard Burton: the Man, the Myth, the Radio Host

by gingerlegend



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:06:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerlegend/pseuds/gingerlegend
Summary: Note: I ended up backing myself into a corner with this chapter, but since I intend for each chapter to have a different feel to it, I figured it's fine to have a chapter in which nothing actually happens and nothing is truly set up. If nothing else, I've set up the idea that there is no true version of this story, and the story will twist on itself, contradicting itself and breaking away suddenly, ending without having any "ending."Probably.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Leonard Burton: the Man, the Myth, the Radio Host

_ "This is a story about me," said the man on the radio. _

_ And you were confused, because it shouldn't be possible for  _ this _ story to be told by  _ this _ man. _

_ "Greetings from Night Vale." _

If you had tuned in to the radio and heard that, you would be uncertain of most things. You are usually uncertain of most things. You are always uncertain of all things. In that way, this man on the radio was much the same as you.

The man on the radio would not have been the voice you normally hear. Perhaps he could have been the voice you normally would have heard if you had tuned in long ago, but that was before before you existed.

Before radios existed.

Before this town was given a name.

Before so many things.

Before. Merely before. No need to specify when, because you were not there. You were not  _ then _ .

In any case, this is a story about Leonard Burton.

Nobody said that. Nobody needed to, as it was written down, right here. And you are reading it.

Leonard Burton was a radio host. He was a man, presumably. You have not seen him, but you have heard his name. You have heard his voice, but only every so often.

Leonard Burton remembered so much. He remembered so little. He was much like any Night Vale citizen, in this way.

**This is a story about Leonard Burton.**

And this is a story about possibility. A story about anything that could have been, everything that probably was, and something that never will be.

Leonard Burton woke up one day. It was a beautiful day. The sun was hot, as it so often was, but past performance was not a predictor of future results, and it continues not to be.

Leonard Burton did not wake up that day. It was a beautiful day. The sun was hot, as it so often was, and past performance suggested the possibility of continued results. Correlation did not equal causation, but it suggested the possibility of causation.

Leonard Burton was the only man in Night Vale.

Leonard Burton was no longer in any town, so to speak.

Leonard Burton was Schrodinger's broadcaster.

Leonard Burton was alive, and he was dead. Leonard Burton himself did not know whether he was alive or dead. He believed himself to be alive, but then he had no evidence.

So he mused into his microphone, though there was no plug attached. There was no one around to listen. It didn't matter. He spoke out of some unconscious need to speak. He needed to broadcast his voice. He needed to broadcast the voice of the town.

He was the Voice of Night Vale.

Cecil Gershwin-Palmer was the Voice of Night Vale.

Cecil Gershwin-Palmer was only an intern.

Cecil Gershwin-Palmer never existed.

Or perhaps the fact that the  _ idea _ of him existed was enough. Does an imagined person exist, even if they are not real?

Do you have to be real to exist?

**This is a story about Leonard Burton.**

This is a story about a tragic death, a tragic loneliness, or a tragic reality, fractured.

This is not a story at all. This is a story of contradictions. A story of details without plot, of character without purpose, of a town outside of reality.

This is a story about something that, by all accounts, should never have been possible.

And this is a story that cannot be told without winding statements, phrases repeated haphazardly, missing beginnings, empty endings, and an ever present middle.

This is a story. This is an ending. This is only a chapter break.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I ended up backing myself into a corner with this chapter, but since I intend for each chapter to have a different feel to it, I figured it's fine to have a chapter in which nothing actually happens and nothing is truly set up. If nothing else, I've set up the idea that there is no true version of this story, and the story will twist on itself, contradicting itself and breaking away suddenly, ending without having any "ending."  
> Probably.


End file.
